


book of job

by widowcapsicle



Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, fuck netflix, if u know the title then u know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:42:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26853145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/widowcapsicle/pseuds/widowcapsicle
Summary: The arduous path it takes for April to come to terms with her sexuality and how she finds Sterling in the process.
Relationships: April Stevens/Sterling Wesley
Comments: 17
Kudos: 76





	book of job

**Author's Note:**

> tw: homophobia, internalized homophobia, radical christianity, depression

Adele Meisner had blonde hair and she wasn't any taller than April at eight. She really liked watercolors and it was during Sunday School one spring when they were told to color in an Easter worksheet. Adele dipped her brush in blue, forgot to clean it, and then dipped it in green. It upset her at first until, beside her, April reminded her that it was pretty and different.

Adele would giggle and say, "They're like your eyes!"

"What do you mean?" April had never been aware of eye color before.

"They look green but then sometimes they look blue. And then sometimes green," Adele said, laughing.

That was the first time April noticed anything about eyes in general. She didn't dwell on it, but she'd remember that Adele had hazel ones—the first person she ever knew to have that color.

Adele Meisner taught her to fall in love with color that day. And when she was told that her friend with hazel eyes was leaving for Arizona forever, it upset her.

The next month at Sunday School, another blonde girl sat next to her. They knew each other from Mr. Mckinley's second grade class and they talked sometimes when they were put in groups, but April never really looked at her, never really saw the color of her eyes.

"Are you sad?" The girl asked. They were the same height then, but April didn't really remember that. She didn't remember much other than when she realized her eyes were bright blue. They were probably different from hers because Adele Meisner was good with colors and she said that her own were blue sometimes and green sometimes. This girl's were frostier.

"A little bit," April said.

"It's okay, I'll paint with you," she said.

"Okay, Sterling." That was the day she forgot about Adele Meisner altogether. But April would never forget what she taught her.

Her mom was soft pink on good days. April could never figure out her color on bad days. Maybe blue? She could never be one emotion at once. When April accidentally tripped over their backyard fire pit and scraped her knee on the stone tile, her mother was sad and upset. It was always those two together: red and blue. Especially when it came to her dad.

Her dad was gray, April realized after all this time. He was gloomy, like a cloud hung over his head all the time, but he refused to let it rain. It festered a lot of anger that would occasionally make it to the surface, but only sometimes. And when it did happen, his fury sounded the same; repetitive, proverbial lilting of certain syllables when he screamed, emitting sounds, not words, because young April never cared to pay attention to the reasons. Yelling was yelling regardless of his semantics. Lightning would never strike the same place twice, but thunder followed it every time.

It was commonplace to hear his shout directed at a phone. Never directed at her, never her mother. She realized that that was normal at some point. And then she wondered if it was genetic later down the line, the congruent stretch of emotions she would feel when Sterling threw her into Jessica's arms.

Adele Meisner probably saw the world this way, it was a lot easier. Colors carried emotions really well. So well to the point where she probably didn't feel things in words, but in tints. She didn't feel angry, she just felt red. Not jealous, just green. It made it impossible to be self-aware, with no words to use and only a color wheel, what does one actually really feel?

"I like Luke," Sterling said. The school year just started and April was smart. April could tell other people's colors, she could tell other people's feelings. She knew that Luke felt pink for Sterling, and she was the only one to know that, not because Luke told her but because she saw it. She saw it in the brightest of all colors how he would try to get close to her at lunch, how he would pick up her backpack for her, how he said that he really liked her shirt even though everyone in the school wore the same one.

"I don't," April said.

Sterling laughed at that. "Good, because that would be sad if we liked the same guy."

April meant "I don't" in a red way. A furious way. She didn't really know why.

"Would he be good for you?" April asked and the other girl would just shrug.

April would feel green for another month before she was placed in a perpetual state of red. Because that would be when Sterling gave her away.

It took her a lot of convincing, a lot of suppressing, that whatever she felt for Sterling was out of pure hatred. Sterling was heartless--a fraud, someone who looked like they eluded drama but was actually the ghostwriter for it. She was schadenfreude on two legs. She laughed at April's shame the moment she gave her away, like an object, a toy she didn't want to play with anymore because she was going to have a "teen" in her age soon. April felt disposable.

If her father's constantly imposing arguments on the phone were any indication, it made sense she would feel the same kind of indignation. They shared blood, after all, and though she received most of her mother's looks, her father gave her her colors.

Growing up with her father as an example, April learned to argue all the time. Her world was full of logic--until it came down to her emotions, which were put neatly in a box labeled "distraction" because being able to rationalize colors wouldn't hold up in her or anyone else's court. Everything else could be explained, disputed, fought, rejected. While colors were how she saw people, debate was the only language she knew.

So it made sense in second grade, when Adele Meisner left, for her to ask why she was so upset, so red and blue over it. She asked around, wondered if that was how regular people felt. Pastor Boolie was no help and neither were her teachers. She looked to scripture for answers and colors, but was faced with nothing but the mantras she already knew. Love was not good enough of an answer. She needed to know why love existed.

Curiosity killed the cat and then killed April, and the difference was that the cat was brought back, but no satisfaction came for her. She was left alone to wallow in confusion until eighth grade.

Women were…pink? yellow? bright purple and shiny gold? She didn't know, but they were everything all at once. For someone so independent and so isolated from the rest of the world, it didn't make sense to look at a woman and figure that she would want them, that her heart would ache for them. She didn't even like anyone in particular that year, but she remembered Adele Meisner, Erin Solis, Gracie Cochran and Taylor Simms. To her they were all Adeles: the Adele of third grade, the Adele of fourth grade, the Adele of sixth grade, and the Adele of seventh grade. The realization came on her eighth grade trip to Six Flags when she saw two women kissing each other as they ate churros. It gave her something that neither Paster Boolie, her teachers, or the Bible presented. Those two women made it real.

And in her fashion, she would spend forever repressing it. She had to battle fourteen years worth of indoctrination at that moment, and it was like she was chipping away at a stone building using only a toothpick. That metaphor sounded more achievable if she were being honest with herself.

She read so many articles, especially blogs of Christian gays, but her debating self couldn't be convinced. So she dated Henry Tate the summer of freshman year.

Henry was a good guy, he was driven, but really only about basketball. As someone who valued education over everything else, April couldn't reconcile that difference. But she compromised because she read articles that relationships were all about compromise. She compromised by giving him anything and everything because it compensated for her lack of love for him. Doing his homework for him was the least she could do because forcing herself to feel something wasn't working. April would find out later that that wasn't the kind of compromise the articles meant; it was about emotional compromise, and it's common knowledge that April was the least emotionally self-aware girl on the face of God's earth.

April would break up with Henry a month later at her family's Fourth of July barbecue.

"You couldn't have done it until _after_ he got his first kebab?" She was never particularly fond of Blair just because being related to Sterling made her a phony by proxy. And they were never friends, so Blair, eating a mouthful of her dad's barbecue and speaking to her that way was unfounded and unnecessary. The fact that her mother invited the Wesleys to their house almost made her leave her own family's party if decorum and hospitality weren't such a big deal in the south.

"Excuse me?" April was holding a cup of ice water, lounging on a pool chair with a large sunhat, sunglasses, and a kimono like a divorced aunt who just told the pool boy off. Except the pool boy was Henry.

"Henry cried, dude," Blair said.

April scoffed. "Why are you in my business?"

"I'm just sayin' it was kinda rude."

"I literally could not care less what you think Wesley," April snapped. Blair rolled her eyes and left the lounging girl there, walking away to sit on the poolside with her legs in the water. April watched her, eyes ultimately landing on the happy squeals in the middle of the pool where Sterling was riding Luke's shoulders and chicken fighting the Abbott siblings.

A split second revelation had April wishing she had what they had with Henry. Sterling and Luke lost the fight, both submerging under water for a second, then resurfacing with laughter. They snuck a kiss and April purged the thought of wanting to be them, opting to mentally vomit instead. Blair yelled something about PDA and "leaving room for Jesus", prompting Sterling to grab her by the ankles and drag her into the pool with them, a skewer with one beef chunk still gripped by Blair getting soaked in the process. Enraged, Blair splashed her twin sister with water and April couldn't watch the activity anymore. Being in a giant backyard of a giant house filled with so many people only reminded her that she was alone.

It would become commonplace, the turning feeling of disgust in her stomach every time she saw Sterling and Luke. April, who was certain she had reached a level of emotional intelligence that was greater than her peers, chalked it up to the frustration of not being in love. She hated Sterling, sure, but the stomach-turning was actuated only when she was with Luke. Alone, Sterling just annoyed her. But when she's with her boyfriend, April reacted like she was watching a horror movie where every scene was more terrifying than the last.

April also read in a JSTOR psychology journal that it was common for high schoolers to want to be in a relationship. So her feelings checked out.

Sophomore year, April told herself that she was finally convinced, after constant reading of gay blogs, that she was indeed one of them. It was hard, still, as she lived every day constantly saying that she might be bisexual, that one guy could come into her life and change her mind—but it was certain that she liked girls. God wouldn't do this to her because she has been perfect her whole entire life. Yeah, maybe there were some grudges held and the occasional slip of temper, but she prayed for forgiveness every time. She made sure to cleanse herself of sin as soon as it happened. April would say these words every day to the mirror to assure herself that God still loves her, because her debating self was in constant need of convincing.

That same year, Sterling joined Forensics.

"You hate public speaking," April said with a bit of disdain.

"Not really, I was in Drama club," Sterling responded with a smile.

"Go back there, then."

"Ellen said I would be good at it." She pouted, and April, who had no violent tendencies, had the sudden urge to wipe that from her face using whatever method available.

It would turn out that Ellen was wrong and Sterling was, in fact, not good at it. Sterling was good at many other things though, for example: constantly disappointing April.

"You make a great point?! Sterling are you dumb? How could you say that in a debate?" April had taken Sterling away into the janitor's closet so she could yell at her.

"I got nervous," Sterling lamented. "And it was true. He did make a great point."

All April could do was groan.

"How did you do at yours?" Sterling interjected.

Here's the thing that April learned about Sterling. The blonde girl was constantly aware that April hated her. The entire school knew that. And Sterling fought back on many occasions, like how they both ran for Fellowship leader that year and sabotaged each other, though it was ultimately given to a junior. But April realized that Sterling never started it. In many cases, the taller girl was kind. It was her default. Sterling retaliated sorely out of pride, not reciprocal hatred. And that's what enraged April, the fake-ness of it all.

April didn't seem to have the energy to start something today, though. "I did great, obviously."

"Awesome!" Sterling smiled. "Good luck on your next one. I'mma watch." Sterling stepped out of the closet and for the first time ever, April suddenly had a feeling in her chest that was familiar but impalpable. Familiar in a Taylor Simms of Eighth Grade way, but April didn't know that just yet.

April would take home the trophy that year, becoming the youngest girl to ever get it. The accolade would push her to be captain the next year. And as April held the trophy, a giddy Sterling squealed and ran to her like they were friends, like April was Blair and Blair actually won at something. April was too lost in the feeling of success to care.

Later that night she would recall the way Sterling clasped both of her arms hard, congratulated her, then pushed her to her chest for a hug. Suddenly, April no longer felt the success, only the burning vestiges of where Sterling had touched her, like her hands were molten and more precious than the two-feet-tall decoration she earned for being great. Somehow, the trophy was no longer enough.

A month later, they started learning about conductors and insulators in physics. Mrs. Kramer pulled out a tube with wires inside and taught students its specifics. As long as both ends were touched, the tube would light up. She said that even fifteen people holding hands could create a circuit, and when the students didn't believe her, she had them all hold hands and form a circle.

April was standing already, waiting for someone to take her hand. Sterling, happily so, swooped her left hand, laughing slightly at the action, and whispered to her about how cool the human circuit was.

April understood enough about this phenomenon to know that they weren't actually supposed to be feeling electricity through them...but it was Sterling's skin. It pierced her when they made contact. Maybe Sterling was grounded, maybe she rubbed a balloon on her hair, maybe she slid on carpet wearing fuzzy socks, those were the common explanations. But April had to stop to realize that she didn't feel sparks when they touched at all, it was just in her head and in her chest and in her stomach and in other parts of her—but still so real. It was like she was slowly losing her mind, deluded by the idea that phantom chemistry existed between them incentivized by a physics experiment.

Sterling's hands were soft, prompting April to brush the back of the girl's hand with her thumb like she would her stress cube. It was on accident, or maybe a reflex, but anyone who held soft hands did that right? Everyone had the sense of urgency to feel the texture of exfoliated skin? It had to be a human nature thing, for sure. She did the action without premeditation and mentally chided herself for being so loose, for lacking so much control over whatever it was that overcame her.

Sterling didn't seem to mind. Even better, she actually returned the gesture. Sterling held April's hand and caressed her with her Luke-loving thumb. Maybe April was feeling things, and this, too, was a phantom experience. Touch could be a psychosomatic response for her brain's pining. But that wasn't an emotion she was aware of just yet.

April looked up at her, looking for some sort of explanation, but the tall girl's attention was on the lighting stick.

April would give into the urge that night. Her, alone in her bed, with no one but the moonlight witnessing it. Her hand had a life of its own under the duvet and her head was all Sterling, sinning with every hard breath and every movement as she imagined things that would never happen. And over and over in her head she replayed the feeling of Sterling's thumb against her skin, the electricity of the touch piercing her like she was feeling it all over again; it was pure pleasure—and maybe feeling way too much of it like sitting on a chair for capital punishment—but she was absolutely nothing if not intense. She could see release in 20/20, but she closed her eyes so maybe it could disappear. It came for her regardless, giving her no control on the matter.

She would regret it with the fire of a thousand suns and would pray for forgiveness right after. April joined the Straight-Straight Alliance the next day.

The aftermath of the revelation was horrendous. April would be in a downhill battle against scripture, against teaching, against God. She would look in the mirror only to remind herself that she was in exile. It turns out that her recent coming-to-terms with her sexuality was not it at all. That "I'm sure I like girls" thought she had at the beginning of the year was actually done out of confusion. Because, at that time, it was only a theory. It was based on her past experiences when she was a kid. But now? It was real, it was hypothesized and it was confirmed, substantiated by the fact that her hand was in her pajamas and her head was on nothing but the face of a girl whose touch she craved. April felt for girls the way she was supposed to feel for boys and while that prospect was a harmless thought months ago, it was now validated.

It was harder, even, to know that she was beyond confusion. This was deliberate and this was predetermined. April was gay and she knew it. God knew it. She had spent an enormous time compartmentalizing it that when something arose that forced her to confront it, it hit her like a brick. Like, literal God pitching an 80-mph curveball of a rainbow cinder block on her head and seeing if she would recognize that she was…de-straighted? _un_ straight? Any other word made her uncomfortable right now.

A tremendous downfall followed.

April would stay up all night, spending about 25 percent of it thinking about Sterling, 25 percent thinking about how to get rid of Sterling, and 50 percent reading articles about how to straight herself back. She became extremely agitated, nose in the Bible looking for ways to repent, reading Proverbs for some Lady Wisdom and staying away from the Book of Ruth (almost to the point of tearing its pages were it not sacrilege). She now _hated_ her story with Naomi because she couldn't tell herself that it was a possibility. Entertaining the idea that lesbians existed in the Bible is a Pandora's Box—opening it would literally ruin the world. _Her_ world. And then another thought came to her.

This wasn't her world, it was her father's and she's only living in it. She would spend nights upon nights crying about it. Because Team Stevens is perfect. Being gay is not a model of perfection and she would be kicked out of this team. This would become more apparent as the days wore on.

Her and her father watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade every year. She would be up early in the morning to help her mother cook because her grandparents and extended family would be coming over, and when her services were no longer needed, she would sit with her dad on the couch as they watched the floats and giant balloons.

There was this musical, it's called The Prom, and while it hooked April's interest, it didn't stop the uncomfortable attitude she would have about it. It's about two girls who wanted to go to prom together but the PTA and the student body were against it. April would watch with awe as two girls held hands and sang, and then did the unthinkable on national television.

Her father would turn livid, seeing two girls kiss. "Perverts," he said with a disappointed aura and pure ire. "I can't believe they would show this when a bunch of kids are watching!"

April remained silent.

"It's surprising how far we're regressing," he said. April cowered in her seat in a reflexive response. "Letting people out like them roam free. Even celebrating it!"

She was minimized to a "them" now. The word used to be nothing but a pronoun. Now it was a box. No longer a mere category, but a displacement. She was an "other", and others do not belong here in rural Atlanta. Others do not belong in this expensive house.

Thank God that the doorbell rang. But she wouldn't be thanking Him for long. When they watched the football game, her father and her grandfather drank beer on the couches. There was some commercial, April didn't remember what for, but it featured a gay couple, launching her father in a tirade which her grandfather would comply with. Because her grandfather was just a copy of her dad, down to the way they held their beers: with one hand and an energy that screamed "I am a man who can argue about politics and make some points, and I am infinitely better than you". They held their beers the way they held their guns, like doing so exuded power.

And dinner that night would be even worse.

"We had to go to a different church that Sunday," her grandfather told. He was recounting the time he and Nana went on a road-trip to Pennsylvania. "You know, because it was Easter—could you pass me that, honey?" April gave him the CorningWare of mashed potatoes.

"Oh, this is a good one," her cousin, Peter, said. He was twenty-seven and he does nothing but live in the basement of his parent's house even though he has a Bachelor's in philosophy. He's jobless so he spent all of his time with a gun, literally when hunting and virtually when gaming.

"Anyways," her grandpa continued. "We just went to the first church we see, you know. And it's pretty, it looks nice, not like our church, and we see this couple—it was very odd the way they walked in—two men holding hands. And the people didn't even bat an eye!"

April saw the way Peter staged a cringe despite him probably having heard this story countless times. This was April's first time hearing about it.

"Did you figure out who takes it?" her father added in with a smirk. April didn't really know what it meant.

Her grandfather smugly smiled at him, too. "Oh, the short one, I'm sure. Right, honey?" he asked his wife.

"Probably. Don't the short ones always…you know…receive it?" she responded, and everyone around the table laughed.

April now understood and almost upchucked her squash.

"Can I have the pitcher, darlin'?" her grandfather requested her. It's funny, she never realized until many days later, the fact that she was being ordered to give him things even if the object was far from her. The pitcher was on the other side of Peter who only needed to lift his hand a finger's width to grab and pass it to grandpa, who was also sitting _right_ next to him. She wasn't in the correct emotional space to notice it at the time considering that they were condemning every fiber of her being with every word that left their mouths. "You know, we were gonna be civil," her grandfather continued. "We were gonna sit in our pew and listen to the sermon but then…children! There were two! They were like five and six! They ran after the…the two gays…and sat next to them. These people! Are having children! Can you believe that?!" He wasn't angry at the way he said it, just pure disbelief that people exist, apparently.

Her father made a face. It actually brought her more pain than his snide comments earlier one. His purpose before was red, full-on anger about this idea. But now he was just green, filled with pure toxicity, like the story smelled of sewage. April would never let this picture out of her head forever. From the likes of it, she was buried in the earliest stage of compost, emanating the exact same smell and the exact same look and the exact same purpose: to manure.

"So what did you do?" April's father asked.

She told herself that she should make an excuse for the bathroom, but it was the curiosity that lingered in the air keeping her bolted on her mother's mahogany chair. The ending to this story wasn't good and she realized, later on, that the reason she stayed was to hear just how big of an audacity her family harbored--just to hear how far they would take their hatred.

"Well, Nan and I got up," her grandfather started, pausing for effect. "And we went to the fags...asked them how they're doing, obviously, we weren't trynna not be civil. And then I asked if the children were theirs. They said yes. And then I said they're goin' to hell."

There was a pause on the table, a silence, and for a moment April was wondering if her grandfather had gone too extreme and the rest of the family knew it. 

But then her dad let out a breathy and righteous sigh, clasping grandpa on the shoulder and nodding his head. "You did the right thing, Ben."

"Damn right I did," her grandfather said in the middle of chewing. "Hon, the pitcher," he reminded to April. "If I can lead just one pair of _gays_ to God, then I've done the Lord's work. We did leave the church, though, ain't no way we woulda stayed if they let the faggots in the way they do. That whole church gonna burn to the ground someday with the way they disregardin' the Bible like that."

April silently grabbed the jug of water and set it in front of her grandfather, suddenly losing the appetite for her string beans.

It was like that one thing she learned in english class: when someone learns a new word, they tend to see it everywhere. Finding out she was gay had the same effect, apparently. God was throwing rainbow bricks everywhere now, not just at her head. She would live in this every day. And maybe that's an exaggeration, but April only remembered the days when her father was bigoted, and in her head it happened in chronology, so it was, in fact, her everyday.

Her grades would take a toll as a consequence of getting about three hours of sleep at night. When she would wake up she would stare at the ceiling, or the wall, keeping her eyes pointed to the first thing she saw as she tranced out and entered a self-deprecating stupor that even God was probably looking down on and cringing at.

"Honey." Her mother had learned to enter her room without knocking because she wouldn't respond anymore. "Are you okay?" She would ask this every day.

April wouldn't even force a smile. "I'm okay," she responded throatily, because on top of not sleeping, she was also not eating and, subsequently, not drinking.

Her mother stroked her hair. She had spoken to the principal about it some point last week and all they said were the same things that she could see at home. April was not focused. April did not speak. April did not eat at lunch, Ellen said. April was constantly down.

"You need to eat," her mother whispered.

"Okay." But she didn't move, her answer an empty affirmative.

"Now," the adult whispered softly.

April looked at her for a moment, and then went back to looking at whatever it was she first saw that day. "I will." A promise that would never be fulfilled even after her mother brought her food on a tray.

The captains of Team Stevens would force her to go to a therapist, despite their unending disbelief in its effectiveness. They never really saw mental health as a crippling problem, that is, until they realized its actual effects. April was already a small girl, no one ever imagined her getting any smaller.

"How are you doing, April?" Dr. Crain was his name.

"I'm good," she said.

"Can you tell me anything about how you're feeling?"

"Not really," she shrugged. "I don't really, like, feel anything, to be honest with you." And the consultations would be unfruitful every time. He would diagnose her with clinical depression, but it wasn't like they knew how to fix it. Medications were the last resort and doctor or not, April was in an absolute hole. And when she would usually turn to a faith as a solution, it was actually the problem.

Well, not faith, but the people in the faith. But she didn't know this. Because as must as she's learned about religion, those two things were one and the same. God was people and people were God. Religion was easy peasey lemon squeezey.

She was, however, stressed depressed lemon zest.

The colors of depression were a spectrum. Or a gradient. From deep blue to black to gray. April would learn this thought silently and steadily. Blue was associated with moments of melancholia, black meant anxiety and pain, and gray meant absolute nothingness.

Blue was the image of Sterling and Luke. Black was the words of her father. Gray was the heavy feeling upon waking up.

"April? Are you okay?" Two weeks before spring break, Sterling would notice her. They were left alone when everyone had exited the Fellowship meeting.

"What?" April used red to color her days often, even though she had always been that to Sterling. It was still misdirected anger, just not the anger of fifth grade she had reasoned it to be.

"Like, are you okay?" Sterling was clutching to her books in her chest like they were a lifeline.

April fiddled with her purity ring upon discovering that Sterling was no longer wearing hers. She wondered when that happened, if it was recently or long ago and she had just been too deep inside an abyss to have noticed.

"That's a stupid question." April fixed the bag slipping on her shoulder.

"I'm just…you're not the same, I mean."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Even though Sterling frowned, April realized that her concern never faded. "Hey, I'm not trying to start anything. I'm just…well, here. At least, like, as here as I can be for you…I guess."

April shook her head at the admission. "No, thanks," she dismissed before shaking her head and walking away.

April wouldn't talk to her again until the start of next year.

During spring break, however, the thoughts of Sterling clouded her mind because of that interaction.

"I think…I don't know. I've always been hostile to her, I think," she said. She had never opened up to Dr. Crain so deeply before. And maybe it's out of despair, or, maybe finally realizing that reaching self-awareness required talking about feelings. "She purposefully pushed me away. And I think that hurt."

The man nodded at her. "You think that's why you're upset with her all the time?" he asked.

April nodded. "Yeah, I don't think I ever really overcame it. Just because she was my first true best friend."

"That's common," he said with a reassuring smile. "Childhood problems tend to remain dormant. And they have odd consequences. Like, being angry at the source and not being aware of it."

"How do you think I can fix it?" she asked. April had never taken the initiative to get better until now. And she saw the way Dr. Crain wrote in his notebook, probably writing about how much progress she was making.

"Well, first we need to find the root cause," he started, setting his pencil down and intertwining his fingers. "This girl…"

"She goes to my school."

He respected her privacy, at least, because he didn't press. He just nodded. "Yes, this girl—this childhood friend—do you think that there's only that one reason you're angry at her?"

April didn't need much thinking to answer that question. Regardless, she remained tight-lipped, unallowing discretion in moments as vulnerable as this. "I don't know. I think I'm also upset with her boyfriend."

He picked up the pencil at that and encouraged her to keep going.

"I had a boyfriend—Henry was his name—about two years ago," she storied. "And we didn't last and, she and her boyfriend have been dating for what? Six years now, I think? I read that it's common for high schoolers to be jealous, you know. Because she's in a happy relationship and I can't seem to get in one like it." She might have mentally chided herself for citing a psychology journal to an actual psychologist, but she was April Stevens and she held her pride in everything.

He nodded. That's what psychologists seem to always do.

"There hasn't been anyone after Henry?" he asked softly.

"No," she admitted. "Maybe it's the lack of good boys in my school. And the fact that she was able to find the one in a small pond and I couldn't." April had figured this lie out already. She just needed to keep a conversation going about Sterling even if it's over things she already understood. Talking about her brought her contentment in a time that's been nothing but anguish.

"Is it competition, do you think?"

"What is?"

"The driving force to your anger towards her. You said that you both fight often. Over academic stuff, it seems."

"Yeah," she said. "It's a pattern, I think. I don't know. She's good at everything. I don't really enjoy people being better at things that me."

"Do you think she's better?"

"At some things," she conceded with a shrug. "We might have equal-footing if you want me to list it and compare the numbers."

Dr. Crain smiled slightly and shook his head kindly against the proposition. "It's good that you recognize that."

There was a long silence with nothing but the sounds of graphite against his legal pad.

"Is there anything else, April? Anything you'd like to share that could be heavy on your heart."

She would say no to that and their session would end. For the first time, April felt relief that someone was finally listening to her without judgment, especially listening to her talk about someone she would spend countless hours thinking about. To have an outlet was like finally breathing again.

"She could tie cherry stems with her tongue," April recounted. Dr. Crain smiled at it. "And I would be upset, because you know, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't allow her to beat me."

"So what did you do?"

"I practiced," she said with a slight laugh. "I didn't even eat the cherries my mom bought. I'd just pick off the stems and do it. I was intense."

"Did you end up beating her?"

"Oh, yeah. I could do four in a minute. She could only do two."

"Quite an accomplishment. That must've felt good."

April shrugged. "I don't know. I felt sad afterwards because she was so… _sad_ about it. Like it was the only thing going for her or something."

"It might have something to do with y'all having been in fourth grade at the time."

April laughed, shifting her sitting position in a more open stance, arm relaxed on the armrest of the large loveseat. "You're right. Nothing important was really happening with our lives at that point. Tying cherry stems would be pretty significant."

Change was coming softly for April. Her mother started noticing it faster than her father.

Life was no longer blue and black and gray. And maybe it's because she's settling into the idea that she could be someone despite what labels would be put on her. That this revelation wasn't a hindrance, even if she could still hear the bitter comments her father would make.

She started leaving her bed more often, though still not in peak condition like before when she would hop out of it with unadulterated excitement. She also started making lists again, writing agendas so she could keep up with her responsibilities, both for school and outside of it.

One day, she walked down the stairs early enough to find her mother cooking breakfast. And she stood next to her as the woman flipped an omelette in the pan, smiling slightly and asking if she needed any help. It came as a shock to her mother, who suddenly radiated with yellow after overcoming the initial surprise. She wondered what color her mom would be if she told her the truth about everything. Red and blue? Periwinkle and yellow? She wouldn't just be one, that's for sure. No one ever felt emotions the way her mother did.

"No, honey. You can set the table, though, if you'd like," her mother said warily, keeping her joy at bay. April didn't miss the way she walked on eggshells in her presence, afraid that one wrong move and one wrong word would send her daughter in another episode. She realized that her mother had never been so concerned in her life until that point, and April would have felt bad for putting her in that position if she wasn't so preoccupied with capsizing in a maelstrom of pain.

She fixed the table and the look of her father was like her mother's, just lacking the same veneer. He was unapologetically elated as he gave her a hug. "Good morning, darlin'!" he said in her ear before separating and fixing his tie. He went over to her mother and she noticed their silent communication before he gave her a kiss on the cheek.

That day was so good to the point where she almost forgot she had a problem. Her father talked about work, she heard the way her mother laughed when he told them a funny story, and it was all music to the ears. April thought that she was back in working-order again. April Stevens was no longer depressed.

If only that was how it worked.

April would get into the worst kinds of episodes deep into the night. They were still filled with thoughts of Sterling and thoughts of reversing herself into the "rightful" kind of human being. She watched a Netflix documentary on Christianity, read scripture, and went to virtual Bible Study.

She watched sermons and found videos of LGBT-friendly pastors from kind communities but purposefully ignored them. April was feeding her self-hatred by choosing to only consume words of prophets that went against her. She was looking for confirmation that her way was incorrect. It's what sent her down another severe spiral.

"Marriage between one man and one woman is the foundation of a free society," one pastor said, and April hummed in acknowledgment to it like she wasn't contradicting herself.

"God defines marriage, not government. To redefine his teaching would mean that you abandon him," another said.

Three more fifteen-minute YouTube sermons later, April found herself doubled over in a ball on her bed and sobbing into her pillows. She would shut out Dr. Crain every week for the next three weeks.

"Is there anything that happened that you can tell me?" he asked on the fourth week.

April stared at the window behind him, her nail subconsciously finding its way between her teeth as she regressed into a closed-off stance, wrapping her arms around herself and putting her feet together to try to be as small as possible to try to be invisible. But there were only two people in this room and both of them had working eyes.

She contemplated for a moment before she finally looked at him. April could see that he noticed her red-rimmed eyes and wrote something down about it. She could read him as well as he could read her at this point. She opted to remain silent.

"I wanna talk about your progress," he filled the room with sound. "I can prescribe treatment—"

"Aren't psychiatrists the only ones allowed to do that?" she interjected. She was okay with conversation as long as she wasn't the topic of it.

He nodded. "I mean to say that I can refer you to someone who would give you the medication."

April stared at him for a beat before looking out the window.

"That's only if you want," he said. "There are a lot of pathways to recovery and our system is working right now, albeit in a...gentle pace. But it's also up to you and your family if you'd like to take it a step further."

She contemplated for what felt like five minutes before speaking up. "What do you know about Christianity, Dr. Crain?"

"I know loads," he said with a neutral face. April pegged that he was a Christian even if he lacked the jewelry or paraphernalia to remain professional. He did have an office in the middle of rural Georgia, it wasn't unfounded to assume.

April nodded. "I like Jesus," she said, and while he nodded, it was probably more for affirmation than agreement. "Like a lot, obviously…I don't know. I think I'm just having a hard time."

"With what?"

April shelved the answer to that. "How do you know that, like…I mean, how do you know if you like someone?"

Dr. Crain was probably used to his clients getting flighty with the way he interacted with questions that bounced subject matters. It seemed like it was commonplace. "Well, how do you feel about this person?"

"Good," she said. "Like, when I think about…uhm, just like…" she faltered, letting her voice die out to avoid speculation. Pronouns needn't be disclosed.

He nodded understandingly. "Feeling good is certainly a consequence."

"How about temptation?"

Dr. Crain set his pencil down. "That's a valid and human feeling, too, April."

"Church doesn't think so."

"Feeling tempted isn't a controllable emotion. If someone makes you feel that way, then it answers your question about whether you like this person or not. Whether you believe it's a sin—"

"Not me; the church."

He nodded. "Yes, the church. Sinning or not, the feeling is involuntary. Nonetheless, it is natural."

April looked at the window behind him again, silently praying that God smite her right then. "I…remember, uhm, the girl that I talked about months ago? The one with the boyfriend?"

Dr. Crain nodded. "Yes." When April took awhile to respond, he decided to give her an opening. "Is it her boyfriend?"

April could have broken down, but she decided to bite her finger instead, moving past her nail to dig into the skin. "No," she replied. The doctor decided to wait this time. "It's her."

There was this small tell he had, April figured out, in the way the arch of his eyebrow twitched imperceptibly. Like he knew something. He wasn't surprised, it was like he was waiting for his hunches to be confirmed. Dr. Crain wrote something down and April didn't wait for any more questions to continue.

"It's not right, I know," April said. "I don't…I don't wanna feel like that. I know it's good, but…I don't want it."

"You don't think it's right?" he asked, looking up though his pencil still moved. "Or the church doesn't think it's right?"

" _I_ don't."

"Forgive me, but we just unpacked how you believe sinning is more tied with the institution than it is on you, the person. You said it yourself."

He made some points, but she doesn't back down from debates. "Ultimately, it doesn't matter what I think. I don't think it's right and the church doesn't either."

"You don't think it's right because the church doesn't think it's right _or_ you just don't think it's right regardless?"

"The second."

He hummed. "What would you like to do about this feeling, April?"

She shrugged. "I wanna change it."

"Are you sure? Do you think that's possible?"

"I don't care if it's possible or not, I just know I don't want it."

**Author's Note:**

> this story has been a denizen of my drafts for a couple weeks now and i wasn't planning on posting it until i finished writing the whole thing BUT i heard the devastating news today.
> 
> im so sad, not just for us, but for the actors and creators of the show because i know that they love TBH as much (if not more) than we do. it hurts to think that we won't get to see sterling and april together and for april to finally live out and free. it sucks that we won't get to see all the amazing things blair's gonna do to change the world. 
> 
> so ive decided to publish this story in the name of keeping stepril alive--we deserve that, at the very least. whether another service picks up TBH or not, we will make sure april and sterling's story will always have a home in ao3.


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